


First, Second, Third

by jncar



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon Universe, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship, Rebelcaptain - Freeform, Tumblr: rebelcaptainprompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 06:59:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11286069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jncar/pseuds/jncar
Summary: Three secrets that Cassian Andor shares with Jyn Erso. Canon missing moments. For Tumblr rebelcaptain prompt 18: Secret.





	First, Second, Third

The first time Cassian tells her a secret is at the end of their long, tense flight back to the rebel base after Eadu.

The memory of his biting defense of his actions still rings in her ears, and she scowls when she sees him approaching the dark corner where she’s been sitting ever since one of the Guardians wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. He crouches down a foot away from her, yet doesn’t meet her gaze.

“Jyn. We’ll be there in less than an hour.” His voice is low, just above a whisper, but his tone is hard to read. He’s not angry. Not boastful. Not controlling or commanding. Is he actually trying to be conciliatory?

He speaks again. “A few years ago, on Jenoport, I was sent to infiltrate a munitions plant. Got a job as the plant accountant. Within a week I had all the reports and records that I needed, so I wired bombs all around the plant. The night shift was still inside, working on the missiles and blaster-packs that would be used against my people. They were just men and women doing their jobs. My commanding officer likes to call people like that _collateral damage_ and _necessary losses._ I try not to think about it, when I have orders like that. I don’t always manage.”

He pauses, and Jyn stares at him with narrow eyes. What does he hope to gain from telling her this?

Yet, at the same time, his words call up the ghosts of dozens of missions with Saw’s partisans that she’s pushed deep into the recesses of her mind.

Who they are – the things they’ve done – might not be as different as she wants to believe.

He continues. “That night, a few of the workers had kids with them. The must have dropped by to bring their parents’ dinner, and stayed to chat. I was wearing a uniform. They knew me as the new man in the administrative department. So when I told the kids to clear out and let their parents get back to work, they listened. No one questioned it. But they were real to me, after that. They weren’t just nameless cogs anymore.

“Still, I had my orders. I withdrew a safe distance, and lit it up. It was foolish of me, but I stayed to watch for a few minutes. I don’t know why. Maybe to punish myself. Maybe this time part of me wanted to get caught. But I was there long enough to see one of those kids – no more than ten years old – racing back toward the fire, calling for his papa. And he saw me, too. I saw it in his eyes. I knew he recognized me, and more than that, he knew that I was responsible.”

Cassian taps his knee a few times and looks down at his feet. “The rebellion needed the information I was carrying. I’d been willing to tempt fate by waiting, but I couldn’t push it farther than that. It was too much to risk. So I did what I had to do.”

_Murderer,_ she wants to spit at him. But the ghosts in her head whisper the same word back at her. She may never have pulled the trigger on a kid right in front of her. But she’d placed bombs. She’d sabotaged transport ships.

Families had been there.

She shakes the ghosts from her head and squeezes her lips together. “Why are you telling me this? I can’t give you absolution, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

Finally, he meets her gaze. “I don’t expect that. I’m telling you because you already hate me. I’m telling you because I’ve never had anyone else to tell.” He sighs and his shoulders slump and he suddenly looks years younger, yet wearier than anyone his age has any right to be. “Like I said, we’ll be there in less than an hour. I’ll do my best to arrange for time to eat and sleep before they debrief you.”

He stands, leaving her more puzzled than ever, but as he turns, he whispers something that she’s not even sure he means for her to hear. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.”

And then he strides away.

A part of her still wants to hate him. But their ghosts – his and hers – they know each other. They wear some of the same faces. Would hating him mean that she has to start hating herself, as well?

When they reach Yavin, she still has no answer to that question.

But when he succeeds in getting them food and rest and leads her to a room with a soft bed and presses a ration bar and a cup of sweet, cold fruit juice into her hands and tells her to sleep well, she thinks that maybe she can’t keep on hating him, and maybe she doesn’t even want to.

~ ~ ~

The second time Cassian tells her a secret is on the shuttle to Scarif. They’ve rallied their troops and made it out of the Yavin system without pursuit, and both find themselves staring out the same window during a quiet moment.

“Can I confess something?” he murmurs.

She raises her brows a little. She still remembers the last thing he confessed to her, and she’s not sure she’s in the mood for another outpouring of guilty-conscious. But he did make this mission happen. He believed her. He _believes_ in her.

She owes him one. “Sure. What is it?” She meets his gaze and smiles just a little.

He’s smiling just a little back, and she’s surprised to find that she likes it.

“I, uh, I’ve never commanded a mission with this many soldiers before. It’s not the usual thing, for my line of work.”

“For a spy, you mean?” She tilts her head and smirks at him.

“Yeah.” He smiles again, and looks down. “I’m a little nervous. I know we can do the job, but I’m still a little nervous.” He meets her eyes again, once more looking like a young man rather than a hardened spy. “Does it show?”

Not any more than it shows in the too-loud and too-jovial conversation in the hold. She shakes her head, and her smile widens. “No. It doesn’t.”

“Good.” This time his smile lights up his eyes in a way she hopes she can remember, later.

“What about me?” she asks. Her hands were shaking when she checked her blaster half-an-hour ago, when she was alone with her thoughts. “Do my nerves show?”

He eyes her up and down with a glance and shakes his head. “No. No one would ever guess.”

“Good,” she replies.

“Good,” he says again.

And they both turn back to the view of hyperspace, and somehow, sharing the silence with him, she feels her nerves settling to a low simmer.

She can do this. _They_ can do this.

~ ~ ~

The third time Cassian tells her a secret they kneel together on the beach of Scarif, watching the hot brilliance of the blast wave approaching.

She doesn’t know who starts the embrace, but wrapping her arms around him and feeling his around her, in turn, is the right way to do this. The right way to meet what is coming.

She hears his voice, murmuring in her ear. “I don’t want this to be the end.”

She swallows her fear, and replies, “Maybe it won’t be.”

_f_


End file.
